This page is a compendium of items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, damnable prevarications, rants and amusing anecdotes - about LAUSD and/or public education that didn't - or haven't yet - made it into the "real" 4LAKids blog and weekly e-newsletter at http://www.4LAKids.blogspot.com . 4LAKidsNews will be updated at arbitrary random intervals.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

What could possibly go wrong?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students.

Dec 11, 2014 :: PEARSON TO REVAMP PISA: Global education giant Pearson is already working on the framework for the 2018 international PISA exam - and it's planning some major updates. The new test will "attempt to redefine reading literacy" to reflect the fact that so much reading is now done online, says John De Jong, senior vice president for global assessment standards. That means assessing new student skills: Can the 15-year-olds who take the exam determine which websites are credible and which are not? Do they understand how connected the world is today? Pearson also plans to ask students "about things that may, on the surface, have little to do with education" - but that trace back, in some way, to their experiences in school. "These are the things that employers want to know," De Jong wrote in a blog post on Wednesday, "so they are the things that educators need to know too." For more: http://bit.ly/1vFCLHu

- Pearson is also developing next year's PISA exam, which focuses on scientific literacy, for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The company plans to add a section assessing students' collaborative problem-solving skills